The Long Highway Pt. 28A

Hiroko translated

my feeling

Sometimes I miss people in Japan and want to talk to someone but don't know who, and I want to be independent, not show need or bother anyone by asking to talk. You can't just call people from out of the blue. Mitchell doesn't understand everything.

Not finding someone to talk to is like a wall and you know how to knock the wall down. It's always good to see you, to talk, to touch, so good. I can be honest with you. When we meet after a long time, find each other again in my bedroom, on the dove-colored sheet, you look at me from the bed and I tell you I like you to put it in me from behind and in my mouth and you are not shocked. I worry it will bother you that my husband also comes inside me, but you seem to understand how things are and not mind, to care for me anyway.

Your pictures affect me. Last night Mitchell's friend from work visited. Before that, I'd written you a message and sent it to Hiroko for translation when, if she has time. It was still on my mind and at first I just kind of went through the motions of welcoming Mitchell's friend. I brought out refreshments and joined them in the living room but their conversation went over me. It was about work.

Mitchell brought me into the talk by speaking about my country.

At the end of the pandemic, even though he'd gotten the vaccine, he was worried about going to Japan. We were telling his friend and Mitchell said, "The thing is, they don't have Paxlovid," the medicine that works against Covid. He laughed off his concern, not wanting to look weak to his friend.

"But they wear masks a lot," he added, with a smile for me. "They're very polite. They just don't want to use a medicine manufactured in another country."

Mitchell insists that we Japanese are very nationalistic. "But not as much as Koreans." He likes Korean women too, by the way.

Mitchell has told me that when we were in Japan he was so disoriented by the new culture he could understand how an old person with Alzheimer's felt, totally lost, and that he almost enjoyed it, the freedom from responsibility. I don't think he really did, though. He talked about how he depended on me for help even just getting around. Of course he didn't mention that to his friend visiting. He wanted to look strong to him.

But he did end up talking with his friend about how scared everyone was at the height of the pandemic. "We really didn't know where things were going," Mitchell said. He was glad to commiserate. He's more scared of things than most people. I think.

Mitchell's friend seemed to see he wanted him to say he felt the same, that the fear was understandable, not a sign of cowardice, and he obliged.

"The pandemic was like riding an out-of-control elevator. All the passengers on it equally terrified. People who usually don't talk to or even look at each other suddenly sharing the same fate." He added that the crisis had a good side, brought communities together, at least for a while.

I don't know that colleague of Mitchell's well but he seemed interesting. I poured him another cup of tea so he'd feel welcome in our living room, on the sofa. I'd had to reach around him. The upholstery slid under me. Moment of silence as the cup filled with hot water.

"Excuse me," I said, smiling to make him feel at home.

Mitchell is a natural worrier about some things. For example, the super of the building where we live is friendly to us and Mitchell saw that he understands my Japanese a little even though he has never studied it, as Mitchell has. The maintenance man said he's learned some "just by listening, picked it up." Mitchell doesn't just pick things up. He has to work hard to make any progress. He struggled with Japanese for a while and gave up. To learn a new language you have to start young and he was almost forty when we met.

So he's a little jealous of the super. He gets jealous though he isn't of you. I've told him about our correspondence but been careful not to make too much of it or say how deeply it touches my feelings, describe it as just casual.

Mitchell likes our sex, of course, but even that makes him possessive. When I kissed down his chest, he thought it showed my experience with other men. At the same time he wanted it. He asked me to kiss him. "Just the front."

He wanted me to a special way at first, with only my lips.

"After that, you're free." He laughed. "You can do anything you want."

I made him come in my mouth, like your bubbling, frothing cream.